The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a method for capturing wide-angle images and presenting them to a viewer, and a storage medium for such images.
A technology is known where a series of panoramic images along a route are captured and stored in a memory, and the stored panoramic images are presented to a viewer. A panoramic image is a series of pictures stitched together sequentially, the pictures being landscapes surrounding a viewer through 360 degrees span and being captured with a camera. A panoramic image offers the images of landscapes in a view direction of a viewer when the viewer stands at a position on a route and looks at the landscape from there.
However, in the conventional art, only one series of panoramic images was available for viewing. Therefore, when a viewer observes the sequence of panoramic images, the viewpoint of the viewer is confined on the route in which the sequence of images were captured. Thus, the images of landscapes available to the viewers are limited to particular directions in which the panoramic images were captured, not allowing the viewer to move his viewpoint freely.
The sequence of images may be interpolated so as to allow the viewer to move his viewpoint to some extent. However, this requires a large amount of data to be processed, imposing a heavy load on a computer and consuming a lot of time for processing the data.
Use of a three-dimensional geometric model of an environment allows the viewer to move his viewpoint freely. However, such a model results in deteriorated images as compared to the presenting of images to the viewer by switching the images of a series of panoramic images.
The present invention was made in view of the aforementioned problems. An object of the invention is to allow capturing of wide-angle images, thereby offering more freedom to the viewer in moving his viewpoint when the viewer observes the images.
In order to achieve the aforementioned objects, the image processing apparatus according to the present invention is constructed as follows.
An image processing apparatus according to the invention comprises:
storage means for capturing wide-angle images at positions on multidimensional grids by using a plurality of imaging means each of which captures a predetermined sight, the storage means storing the positions at which the images are captured and a reference direction with respect to which the images are captured, the positions and reference direction being stored corresponding to the images;
control means for specifying a viewpoint and a view direction of a viewer; and
presenting means for identifying an image that is captured at a point closest to a viewpoint of a viewer from among the images stored in the storage means, and identifying an image region according to a view direction of the viewer by using the reference direction, and presenting to the viewer an image that falls in the image region.
The image processing apparatus further comprises sync signal generating means that provides a sync signal to the plurality of imaging means, wherein the plurality of imaging means capture the images in synchronism with the sync signal.
The image processing apparatus further comprises index generating means that generates and attaches an index to images captured by each of the plurality of imaging means, the images having a common index being stitched together to form a wide-angle image.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters designate the same or similar parts throughout the figures thereof.